Countermanded
by thegrumblingirl
Summary: Checking the road behind him in the rear-view mirror, 007 puts his foot down and urges the Aston Martin faster towards Los Angeles. He doesn't think about why he wants this mission over and done with as soon as possible. His target is an international-terrorist pest, a public menace, and he wants him out of the way, that's why. James Bond/new!Q. Skyfall.


Verse: James Bond (Movies), _Skyfall_

Pairing: James Bond/Q, established

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I get nothing. And there was never any question of not shipping these two as soon as I saw the first trailer. The behind-the-scenes feature from which the dialogue involving Q in his pyjamas is from was just the last straw xD

Quartermaster section in the feature: youtube . com. / watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3ytZBmCIpcM#t=264s

Bits of lyrics nicked from The National's 'England' and 'Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks.'

For Inkie (countermeasures on tumblr) and Ch (justfillinginfortheskull).

* * *

_Someone send a runner  
Through the weather that I'm under  
For the feeling that I lost today_

Checking the road behind him in the rear-view mirror, 007 puts his foot down and urges the Aston Martin faster towards Los Angeles. He doesn't think about why he wants this mission over and done with as soon as possible. His target is an international-terrorist pest, a public menace, and he wants him out of the way, that's why. It's not like James Bond has got anything to come home to. He rolls his eyes at himself; and then cocks his head when he hears the soft _click_ as the feed in his ear comes alive.

_You must be somewhere in London  
You must be loving your life in the rain_

He thinks it probably started right at the gallery in London, meeting for the first time, his smug condescension lasting for about a minute; before it turned into hunger, and then appreciation. Now Q is quite often a steady presence, never quite lost in the background noise of Bond's missions, no matter how many explosions are going off at the other end of the world.

"Hello, 007," the smooth and much too young voice greets him, clear across the wide expanse of the Atlantic Ocean and a rock called North bloody America.

"Quartermaster," is all Bond responds, his voice assuming its usual dry tone, but Q hears it anyway.

"I understand you were a little recalcitrant this morning," Q remarks, while Bond can hear his fingers lightly tapping away at his keyboard, calling up the GPS data from the car and from the satellites monitoring their target. "In other words, you were being an irascible shithead during a check-in that you know serves your own protection."

"I don't like MI6 interns," Bond growls, suppressing a smile at how even profanity still sounds posh, coming from Q.

"You mean you don't like it when it's not me," Q counters, and his tone is chiding and smug and matter-of-fact, and Bond knows better than to argue.

* * *

_"I'm your new Quartermaster."  
"You must be joking."  
"Rumour has it I can do more damage on my laptop, sitting in my pyjamas, than you can do in a year in the field."  
"So why do you need me?"  
"Every now and then a trigger has to be pulled."  
"Or not pulled. It's hard to know which, in your pyjamas."_

He'd felt it, in that moment, had felt his own gaze devour the man next to him, who had merely smirked in response—when they'd shaken hands to officially begin working together, James couldn't help thinking he'd agreed to something else entirely. It wasn't until he'd first primed the gun that he allowed himself to appreciate the mind and the man behind it.

It was simple: James knew they needed the cyber division, and cyber division knew that they needed the blunt instruments. That didn't stop one or the other from treating each other with more or less barely veiled contempt when meeting in the corridor; though that was nothing new. 00-agents had forever been chased through Whitehall by the Quartermasters of old for wrecking cars that had taken years to develop and test and build, so this new point of friction really was just the icing on the cake. 'The new breed,' as Q had once jokingly referred to his geek squad down in the labs, was carrying intelligence service into the 21st century, and although James pretended he didn't, he knew that Q knew that he was impressed by what their master's nimble hands could do just by pressing keys. He was known for breaking things, but he made it a point to treat Q's craft with respect whenever he went for a visit, as they called it—not least because he also knew what those nimble hands could do when they weren't just commanding satellites, networks, and data streams, but James' body's full attention.

Even during their first mission, Skyfall, they knew what to expect of each other: James found himself not the least bit surprised that Q gave him orders, sending him where he needed to go, and Q was entirely prepared for 007 not following those orders. Sometimes, Q's data clashed with Bond's hunches, and they both knew that somewhere deep within Q division, the interns were running a tally (or possibly a sweepstakes) on who'd told the other, 'I told you so,' more often.

After that first extraction, when Bond had come back bruised and battered, after he'd been debriefed and successfully evaded medical attention, he'd gone to find Q. The computer lab, usually meticulously neat, was covered in maps, gadgets, and tablets: diagrams were still spinning, trackers that were still active pinging back information on targets, deceased or otherwise; and on top of it all, Q's stupid Scrabble mug was perched precariously, insides stained with coffee. All things that would have to be followed up over the next few days, stored away; but right then Bond could only absently marvel at the disarray he had managed to rack up even here, tearing through the world the way he had.

The Quartermaster himself, tie askew and mop of hair closer to a bird's nest than anything else, was, despite his usual collected and proper demeanour, high as a kite on a job well done, though he tried his best to hide it.

"Q, the place is a mess," he said by way of greeting, wandering into the room with his hands in his pockets.

"And who do I have to thank for that, I wonder," came the sarcastic reply. Q looked around the room, shrugging, then turned back to James. "It seems that your particular style of conflict resolution requires a lot of multitasking."

007 stepped closer, enjoying the way Q just looked curious instead of intimidated. "So, you're saying that you had trouble keeping up?"

"I'm saying that it was a lot of work keeping you alive."

Somehow, they managed to make it to his flat without much awkwardness, both knowing that they had just been waiting for this to happen; ever since Bond's possibly worst innuendo yet. Standing in the hallway of James' apartment, at a crossroads between the living room and the bedroom, Bond wondering whether he should offer to make dinner first; he sure as hell would be starving soon, and judging by Q's slightly owlish expression, the tech whizz hadn't lived off much else than coffee and hearing Bond still breathe the past week. Quietly, they studied each other. He was about to say something when, as was becoming a bit of a worrying habit, Q surprised him, taking off his glasses and putting them on the table in the den next to piles of month-old mail, grasping the lapels of his coat, pulling him closer, and stretching up just an inch to drop a kiss to the corner of James' mouth. He pulled back minutely, raising an eyebrow, challenging, and for a few seconds, they stayed right there, breathing the same air, before Bond decided against dinner and for quenching a different appetite first. He crowded Q back against the wall and pressed their bodies together, flush from chest to hip; and while his lips sought Q's, he silently thanked the 21st century for being such a bother.

When they had finally made their way out of most of their clothes and James was sitting on the bed, Q standing between his knees, peeling his bloody dress shirt off his back and checking for injuries that might need immediate attention, James couldn't help grumbling under his breath, although he was admittedly doing it with his head leaning against Q's stomach, his right hand curled around the other man's thigh, pointedly not taking advantage of the way Q's arousal they had worked up on their way in was clearly visible through his boxers.

"You can keep saying you're fine all you want, 007, we all know you hate the white coats, but this is just proper procedure."

Bond had to stifle a snort. Looking up at Q, he observed the concentrated frown, his mind no doubt whirring in gear while assessing the gashes and tears marring the agent's skin. Smirking, he murmured, "It seems you're working up your own arsenal of inappropriate work field innuendo there, Q." When all he got was a questioning head tilt, he elaborated. "Pyjamas? To be honest, I'm still surprised that worked."

"On a posh toff like me, you mean?" James narrowed his eyes a little, but Q winked, before completing his perusal of James' back. "Don't worry," he added, bending at the waist and pushing 007 back onto the covers by the shoulders. "Shakespeare's mostly just dick jokes, too."

James grinned, wrapping his arms around Q's back and flipping them over, settling on top of Q. "Oh, really," he drawled and nipped at Q's jaw. "Just one thing, though: I'm not laughing now." With that, he ground their hips together, ripping a moan from the other man that meant that the time for jokes was definitely over.

They spent the next two days alternating between the bed, the bathroom, and the kitchen, and if James had ever believed that this wouldn't happen again between them, he'd have snapped himself out of that illusion by the time he realised Thursday evening that he'd just fallen asleep and woken up wrapped around the same person for two days in a row and not felt that gnawing ice in his gut that seemed to have settled in for good a long time ago. After Vesper, he'd still slept with most of the women he'd encountered on missions, but he'd kept it brief and when it wasn't a means to an end, while enjoyable, meaningless; same with men he'd met while on stand-by between ops. (He never slept with men while out in the field—not for lack of offers, or interest on his part, but because in the early days, it could have actually gotten him into trouble, and now mostly because he did value his privacy in some things. He was painfully aware that MI6 shared personal information with allied intelligence agencies, and he wasn't keen on the CIA knowing all that much about him before they and the rest of the world decided to grow up. He didn't mind that M knew, who read him better than anyone else, or Tanner, who was as much as a friend as he was a pain in the arse when taking Bond's passports away. Again. He just wasn't convinced out and proud was actually possible in the world he occupied, at least not yet, and it would probably take a man or woman braver enough than he was to do it. It had always been part of his cover, and just how deep that cover ran, no-one needed to know.)

He knew that Q was more or less well informed on who James had been with, and for how long; so when Q mentioned that he should probably put in an appearance at his own flat—it was a small miracle they hadn't been called back in yet, and James idly wondered if M and Tanner were colluding again—it didn't take James long to decipher the guarded expression in his eyes. He let him go after dinner, not wanting to push his luck, but he fell asleep that night and the bed felt too large.

* * *

They met when they could between jobs for as many days at a time as they could get, at each other's apartments or at decommissioned safe houses Q seemed to have a rather extensive archive of. Q left books at his place, 007 left pocket-sized weaponry. Bond still slept with most women he met on missions: to maintain his cover, to release tension, to forget, to persuade them to do what he wanted; Q rarely left his lab at Six while he did. As soon as James got back to England from whatever extraction point Q had arranged for, his perception soon narrowed down to familiar skin against his and a breathing pattern in his ear that he recognised both waking and sleeping.

When they weren't busy shagging each other's brains out, they talked about almost everything, except for international diplomatic incidents—and their relationship. They were never anything but proper (blatant silly innuendo aside, but no-one was surprised at any check-in conversation involving 007 for those) at work, but as soon as they were in private, all the bets were off; that much James knew. Beyond that, he had no idea, and to his own surprise, they both seemed to feel comfortable with that. And sometimes, when he woke up at night, breathing heavily and haunted by images he'd spent so much time forgetting, there was an arm tightening around his chest and a hand in his hair, and the bed had just the right size.

* * *

_Oh, the waters are rising,  
Still no surprising you_

Back from Los Angeles, back in England, back in Q's flat, 007 steps out of the shower, quickly towels himself off, and slinks into the bedroom to find Q lying on his stomach in between the rustled covers and pillows, reading.

_All the very best of us  
String ourselves up for love_

He climbs into bed beside him and drapes himself across his lower back, entangling their legs, wrapping his left arm around Q's waist, nuzzling his face into his side.

"You know," he starts quietly, "I've never actually seen you with your laptop, sitting in your pyjamas. It's as if you just said that to get me into bed with you," he adds, teasing.

Q looks at him over his shoulder and grins. "One secret at a time, James," and Bond finds himself smiling back easily.

They fall silent again and Q keeps reading, though the intervals at which he turns the pages are getting longer as James noses at his ribs and his shoulder, moulds his strong frame to Q's slighter build. Finally, James can feel Q squirm a little in his embrace, until he eventually throws the book aside, turns, and draws James up into a kiss.


End file.
